This invention generally relates to a device, especially useful for hernia repair surgery.
Hernia, denoted hereinafter for umbilical hernia, ventral hernia, postoperative ventral hernia epigastric hernia, spiegelian hernia inguinal hernia, etc. is a common medical condition in which an organ protrudes through an opening in its surrounding walls (especially in the abdominal region). Hernia is sometimes treated in a tension free repair, such as implementation of meshes, patches etc. This procedure requires the insertion of a wide mesh via a relatively small aperture such that the mesh is located in a posterior layer parallel to the abdominal wall. The insertion of the mesh implants to the abdominal wall by means of laparoscopic technique or similar medical procedures requires more than one aperture and thus the abdominal wall is punctured several times. Those procedures require anesthesia and usually demand a relatively long healing time.
One of the major problems of the above procedure is the unrolling or spreading and the positioning or deploying of the mesh inside the abdominal or the pre-peritoneal cavity. The step of unrolling the mesh, directing the right side of the mesh, positioning and fixating the mesh and positioning it in the right place usually adds significantly to the time required for carrying out the procedure. Moreover, inserting the mesh/patch into the body without a trocar may expose the mesh/patch to infections.
Some techniques suggested in the literature disclose mesh-like for treating hernia. Those techniques fail to guarantee even, complete and smooth deployment of the mesh, without formation of wrinkles, and cannot ensure full anchoring of the implant to the abdominal wall.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,824,082 ('082) relates to a prosthetic hernia repair patch that can be rolled into a tube for laparoscopic delivery through a trocar and which deploys to a generally planar form when ejected from the trocar into the abdominal cavity. The deployment of the prosthetic is done by embedding a wire frame made of shape memory alloys into the prosthetic. When the prosthetic is inserted into the body it is heated thus, activated—i.e. it springs into its functional, predetermined configuration and deploys the patch. However, embedding a wire frame in a prosthetic is complicated.
Thus, there is still a long felt need for a device that is simple, will shorten the time required for the spreading and the positioning of the mesh inside the body and will be inserted via a single small-bore opening.